The investigators suggested that the company needs to better understand the law. That's putting it lightly, no?

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Earlier this year, Mitsubishi admitted to cheating on its fuel economy tests on some of its Japanese-market vehicles. The company hired investigators to discover what led to this cheating. Now, the results are in, and it doesn't paint Mitsubishi in a positive light at all.

A number of factors led to Mitsubishi's scandal, Reuters reports. The investigators found that the company did not have "the manufacturing philosophy of an automaker."

A focus on cutting costs after previous scandals wore the company's resources thin, which led to engineers being forced to modify existing engines for better fuel economy.

To make matters worse, the employees felt they could not speak up when targets seemed impossible to achieve. Mitsubishi also failed to address complaints of falsified figures from new employees who weren't in on the ruse. The scandal caused Mitsubishi's president to step down, as well as a prominent tech executive.

The company isn't unsalvageable, though. The investigators offered up areas of improvement for the company -- altering the vehicle development process, putting a greater focus on compliance and transparency, knowing the law better and fostering eagerness to report on violations.